The Sensation of Falling
by Skiewrites 2.0
Summary: Instead of crashing into a dangerous planet with Shiro when going through the wormhole, Keith wakes up in the past, long before becoming a Paladin of Voltron. At first, everything seems like a dream, but after continuously waking up on the same day after dying, he begins to think that something was wrong, and the only way to fix it was through death. Timeloop AU!
1. I

Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.

Ugh.

Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, wondering what horrifying event in his dream had made him have such a violent awakening.

It was, surprisingly, vivid - terrifyingly so, to the point that he wasn't sure if it was a dream or not. Even now, Keith could make out small, minute details like the way that the weird space goo tasted and the heat of battle from an explosion caused by his ship, his Red Lion, and the way that Shiro-

No. It was a dream, it had to be, because Shiro was...

Shiro is...

Shiro...

Climbing to his feet, Keith dumped his blanket back on his bed, not caring to make it, and made his way towards what was supposed to be a kitchenette, but was basically a bunch of cupboards with rusty handles and even rustier hinges, surrounding a broken stove, a leaky fridge and a temperamental sink with anger issues, for it was fussy on which days water was allowed to travel out of the tap and had a drainage problem more often than not, to the point where Keith just couldn't be bothered to fix it anymore, and god-forbid he use the hot tap, unless he wants to be hit the face with water. He opened a cupboard door, the one with the least rust on the handle but made the most noise to open, only to be disappointed to see emptiness staring back at him.

So he slammed the door, ignoring the moans and groans from the hinges and the wood on wood thump of the door hitting the sides of the cupboard and moved on to the one next to it, ignoring the bottom cupboards where mould had already began to move in. Maybe be should start making it pay rent, then he wouldn't have to be so reliant on the stolen rations from the occasional Garrison supply truck that went past or the soup from the town three miles away.

Taking a bar out of the slowly dwindling pile (five left - better get some more soon), Keith walked into a room containing a broken couch, a cracked table and a bookshelf, all being overcast with the bright sunlight coming through the gritty windows.

Resigned, Keith flopped onto the couch, breathed in deeply and sighed loudly.

Home sweet home.

He had moved in here about three months ago, after the last school year had finished, after he was kicked out of the Garrison due to 'disciplinary issues', after Shiro...

It's been four months since the it was announced to the public that the Kerberos mission had failed, failed due to pilot error. It had been four months since Shiro had...

Shiro had...

It's been four months, but he still couldn't admit it. It just doesn't seem real, the believe that he was...

But yet, that dream, where everything seemed possible and life-threatening, had made him feel more alive than he had felt in what seemed to be forever, which should be impossible because none of that could have been possible. Sentient robotic lions? Princess of an extinct race with her royal adviser? That cute but really annoying blue pilot? Shiro!? None of it can be possible, is even possible. He shouldn't let the dream get to him, it wasn't real?

Was it?

Fuck it, he needed to go on a run, work out, anything to clear his head of the stupid thoughts and questions that the dream presented.

Back up to his room to change, not bothering to wash because he was going to sweat a lot from and it wasn't like anyone who was going to see him anyway.

Back down the stairs, into the hallway and almost out the front door until the small calender nailed to the wall caught his eye, and he was overcome with the strange sensation of deja vu, with the nagging thought tumbling all over his brain, telling him that 'he had done this before'. It was creepy and unnerving, giving him the impression that it was something to do with that stupid bloody dream he had the night before.

The calender itself was nothing too remarkable, something that Shiro had gotten him that Christmas and one of the only things he had yet to throw away from his time at the Garrison. On it were days that had been marked off, days starred and with notes of the next Garrison ration delivery and the best time to take it. Every night Keith would mark off a day, showing that time did move in the desert, showing it was a day more since Shiro...

But the day was October 23rd. How did he miss that?

Not that it really mattered, after all, there wasn't anyone here to celebrate his birthday with him.

Time for that work out.

\--

He had been quick to forget that dream.

The days in the desert were long and the night's longer, with only training, working on his bike and stealing to keep him occupied. The days turned into weeks and weeks into months and suddenly it was February.

It would actually be Shiro's birthday this year.

He spent the day on his bike, traveling across the desert in hopes of forgetting what day it was, crouching low to keep the sand from going in his eyes and wearing a bandana over his mouth so he could breathe without dust particles ripping this throat apart.

He was about to break his time record (he thinks) before he had the strange feeling of being watched.

It couldn't be the Garrison, for as angry as they were for the missing food portions, he doubted they would come this out in the desert, where it was closer to his shack than it was the main building. There were no roads out here either, so lost pedestrian or some crook hoping to steal his bike. There was nothing here, except the cave opening around the corner-

Was there someone in the cave?

Hiding his bike, Keith took out a torch, turned it on and directed the light into the opening. Taking a step though, he was hit with another wave of deja vu, which was impossible, because he had never been here before. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

He was being watched.

Quickly turning, Keith shined the light on one of the walls, only to see carvings of lions and a big robot-

Voltron.

His breath sped up. This was impossible. That dream, it was only a dream, right? That one dream that he had months ago, about Shiro and robotic lions and weird alien princesses, it was all impossible-

Yet here were the carvings, these stupid carvings that lead to the Blue Lion...

How did they find the lions last time?

\--

Four months.

That's how long he had to wait until Shiro escaped. Until then he had to wait.

He didn't realise how lonely the shack was until he started to miss what he used to have - or was going to have.

He spent his time training and getting ready.

He was going to be prepared this time.

\--

He had forgotten how badly Lance flew, but that was okay, because everyone was here.

Sure they were all screaming at the top of their lungs because Lance really was theworstflier there ever was, but it had been eight months since he had seen them.

(He had missed them.)

(He was never going to admit that fact ever in his life, because one, Lance would never let him live it down, after getting the fact that, yes, Keith too did have feelings, and two, they weren'thisfriends, not yet, because this Hunk still has motion sickness, this Pidge is still believed to be a boy, this Shiro is still unsure and this Lance is still annoying-

Lance never changes.)

Keith smiles as they go through the portal, the one that everyone but him and Blue have doubts going through, and he sighs deeply at the sight of the castle when they first land, and he looks at all the nooks and crannies as they walk though the corridors towards the cyropods where Allura and Coran have slept for 10,000 years.

Keith doesn't know when he first started this castle home, but he does know that he is so glad to be back after all those months.

\--

He hangs back when the others go and get their Lions, mainly because Red was on a Galra warship that was circulating the planet, leaving him to watch the Alteans go through the castle and basically dust everything off. But, unlike last time, when he crossed his arms and stared at the wall until the other came back, he smiled at Allura, and asked random, silly questions for Coran to answer, ones where Keith already knew the answer.

To them, it had only been a moment since the destruction of their planet

To him, it had been eight long months since he fought Zarkon to free Allura.

That was okay though, since he was here now, surrounded by his friends, on the way to getting his Lion and freeing the galaxy of Zarkon's influence.

It was going to be okay.

\--

Things were not going okay.

Like before, Shiro and Pidge went one way to get the prisoners to look for someone that Keith knew wouldn't be there, while he went another way, by himself, to collect Red.

It went just like before, eerily so, not that that should surprise him in anyway shape or form. He hasn't done anything that should change the future yet, at least, he doesn't think he has.

He shouldn't have, and he doesn't think he wants to. Everything turns out fine, in the end. But, now that Keith thinks about it more carefully, some events, like Blue taken from them by Rolo, could be avoided, and the corruption of the crystal should be stopped before it started.

This was going to be harder than he thought.

Before Keith could start planing for either event, he came to the hanger in which Red was being held. Surrounded by the bright blue particle barrier, she looked as magnificent as ever, her coat of red paint reflecting the purple light of the ship and her amour looking better than he last saw her, which left him with the daunting realisation:

This isn't the same Red.

He could feel her quintessence flow over his, judging him. She could feel that he had a connection with her, a different her, a Red that had help him fly into battle against Zarkon himself, but this wasn't her, this was the Red that he first met over eight months ago, when they met for the first time, on this ship.

Keith was getting the through that she still wasn't impressed.

The sudden sounds of plazma guns brought Keith out of his mental stump and turned his attention on the Galra Sentries that have invade the hanger.

He almost forgot that this happened.

Projecting his shield and summoning his bayard, Keith looked around, thinking about what he could do next. Last time, he activated the airlock and got projected into space, along with all the robots and Red.

He didn't want to do it again, but scanning across the room, he couldn't see anything else that he could use.

He also doesn't see the plasma beam come towards him and hit him the backside of the head.

\--

Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.

Ugh.

Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, wondering where the fuck the headache had come from.

Then he remembered the dream, and the dream in the dream that actually wasn't a dream because time travel was totally a thing now.

He was so, unbelievably, fucked.

\--

*Authors Note: should be updating my other stories, but here I am, writing this, because I notice there is like, one time travel fic in this fandom, with said person being Lance, and I just kinda wanted to explore the idea that Allura and Coran not being the only people stuck in a time loop, thought this one will be vastly different that the one they were stuck in, as you can see.*

*If you have any suggestions for the story, then please let me know!*

*If you read my Tokyo Ghoul fic, then letting you guys know that I'm halfway with writing the third chapter!*


	2. II

Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.

Ugh.

Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, wondering what the fuck he should do next.

It takes him a few doboshes before he decides that, next, he should make a mental list of all that's happened so far in this messed up timeline:

1) He went through a corrupted wormhole, and now is stuck living the same thing over and over, and dying and over and over.

2) He's died four times now, not including the wormhole thing that sent him back in time in the first place, because he didn't really die -unless he did and this was the afterlife.

(If that was true, then the afterlife was shit.)

3) This part of the mental list was split into four, one for each death so far:

A) Death #1 was the Galra shooting him while getting Red.

B) Death #2 was the Garrison shooting him, because he didn' plant enough bombs, or he didn't put them in the right place, or that he wasn't careful enough, he wasn't sure yet.

C) Death #3 was bombs, for he was a bit trigger happy that time and managed to set them off months early.

D) Death #4 was completely pathetic, but he was going though the caves, tripped in a puddle, hit his head, and the last thing he remembered was him blacking out, meaning that he died. Again.

4) He was now lying on the wooden floor boards with a headache, again, wondering what he should do next, something that would not get him killed. Again.

Keith rolled over into his back, and stared at the cracked ceiling. He was so glad that Lance, nor Pidge now that he thought about it, were there to see him die due to tripping over a puddle. A fricking puddle!

How bloody pathetic was that!

Standing up and stretching, Keith left his room for the kitchen, opening the single cupboard that contained food - he was going to need to steal from the Garrison truck, again - and left the hut without even glancing at the

Not that he needed to. He already knew what day it was, for it was always his birthday when he woke up after dying.

Was he ever going to be 18?After thinking long and hard (for the total time of about six minutes - the amount of time it takes to st each before training) Keith had decided that he needed a way to track the ways that he fucked up, and the reasons as to why he he fucked up, so he wouldn't do it again. It was bad enough that he was stuck the time loop with no known way of escaping it, there was no way that he was going to accept dying the same death over and over laying down.

There was no way that he could die by tripping over a puddle, of all thing, ever again.

His pride took too much of a fall the first time round.

He ended up stealing a leather notebook from the town's only arts and crafts store, a small run down corner shop with no security that lived on the edge of the dusty town. It was owned by an enthusiastic, but almost blind, man who was in his late 60s. It made Keith almost feel bad for robbing the guy with how pathetically easy it was to steal under the old man's nose. Almost.

He was pretty sure he needed the notebook more than the person who brought it in the first place, assuming that it was brought.

When he get back to the dusty shack in the middle of the desert (not home, this could never be called his home), the first thing he does is fill the stolen notebook out.

First he writes all the ways he had died, as well as why he thinks he had died.

(Some events like the Garrison he will never know but some like his previous death was so pathetically stupid he wishes that he doesn't needed to write this down)

After that he writes two lists. One of them is a list of things he should do, and the other is a list of things that he shouldn't do.

On the 'DO' list are things like 'not die', 'make bombs without dying', 'rescue Shiro without dying' and 'workout' (by this point he couldn't be bothered to keep writing the phrase 'without dying', as it was beginning to hurt his hand, but every time he read the list, there was an unspoken rule he had made with himself that it was there anyway). But compared to the 'DO NOT DO'list, it was comparatively short, mainly due to the fact that every two or three lines he would add the word 'die' in capital letters and made sure to make it bolder than the last, reminding himself that he dying was not on his other list. Other entries on this list are 'getting shot by the Garrison' and 'tripping over small inconvenient puddles in the middle of a cave that had lion carvings'.

Despite writing quite a lot of negative things in the notebook, he had a feeling the, because if the notebook, things were going to turn out better.

Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.

Ugh.

Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, wondering if he should steal a different coloured notebook this time, because there was a very important not that he needed to add in the 'DO NOT DO' list.

'Do not distract Lance while he's driving Blue. He was a bad enough driver as it was.'

Dying while being so close to the end yet so farhurt.


	3. III

Unceremoniously, Keith laid on his bed in the castleship, overcome with a nauseous excitement, his stomach filled with fluttering butterflies.

Ugh.

Sighing, he sat up on his bed and opened up his bag, taking out his knife and his notebook (not a journal, and most defiantly not a diary), the only objects of note in his bag. Hi fingered the peeling cover of the B5 book, a red hardback this time, wondering if he should try to memorise it a bit more. Sure, he had had the eight month previous to memorise everything, but, up until now, he had died before he had even reached this point, the beginning of being a Paladin of Voltron.

It had taken him eight deaths to get this far.

It had taken him 46 months, almost 4 years (not that he was counting), to form Voltron once more, to bond again with his fellow Paladins.

Despite only knowing them for a maximum of a month – a lonesome year in the case of Shiro – the long lonely months that stretched into years in the desert left him aching for the deep level connection from the other humans on the castleship. But, at the same time, they were not the same people who entered the corrupted wormhole with him. Hunk was still fearful and still suffered with terrible motion sickness; Lance had yet to notice his homesickness, blind to how long they were going to be out here fighting the war. Shiro had yet to come to terms with the fact that he no longer had to fight and kill for the enjoyment of others, the Red Paladin doubted they were sleeping due to the new environment, and Pidge, well, everyone still thought Pidge was a boy and she (they, maybe?), still wanted to find their brother and father to the point of leaving Voltron, preparing an escape pod to abandon them during the party.

The party.

The party that Sendak used as a distraction to attack the castle's power source, hurting Lance in the process (the self-sacrificing idiot that he was) and trying to take the castle back to Zarkon. Where was he during all of this? Outside the castle, haven been tricked to leave and unable to help Shiro, Lance and Pidge due to the stupid particle barrier.

Keith chucked the book back onto his bed and stood up, starting to pace around the room, his thoughts filling him with an anxious energy, leaving his limbs jittery and giving him a craving to _do something._ He couldn't go to the training deck, because explaining not only how he found the room and recognised it for what it was but also knowing how to control it and any other question that Shiro may come up with would mean having to tell everyone how he works hard to get to that point in time and beyond, only to die, wake up on his birthday and restart the whole process.

No, he can live without that thank you very much.

So, instead of slashing some Altean dummies with his Bayard like he wants to, he does the next best thing, which just so happened to be slashing the air with his knife, the same thing that he had been doing in the long months that stretched into years in the desert on a daily basis.

And if he never really goes to bed that night, contempt with making sure that the air in front of him could feel the pent up energy, well, what did it matter anyway?

It's not like he had anything of importance planned.

* * *

He nicked his arm with his knife, almost stabbed himself, when the alarm sounded and Allura's voice, filled the halls of the catleship. By the time he had put on his jacket and started running down the white halls, Coran had taken over, spewing some over exaggerated nonsense about how Allura was dying, reminding him that this was a drill, not an attack on the castle. Keith shook his head as he pasted the different rooms that the castleship contain, careful not to let a small nostalgic smile fill his face.

He had missed this.

Something he had not missed, however, was Allura yelling at them for taking too long, for not being armed (which he was, not that he would tell people) and not wearing their amour. The first time round, he was still foggy with sleep, but slightly annoyed at her because ' _they were still here, weren't they'._ Now, though, he was angry. Angry because the others were still new to this. Angry because the others still didn't know the caslteship's layout, let alone know what to do when the alarm goes off. Angry because they had yet to process the fact that they were in space, the furthest humanity has ever gone, and were probably never going to see their planet again (not that Keith cared, because all he had to go back to was the lonely shack in the middle of the desert), and were going to die because of this war against the Galra (again and again and again).

He wanted to snap at her, tell her all of that and more, but he didn't trust himself to do it, because if he started, he doubted that he would stop, going on to tell her, to tell the entire team all that had angered him in the past four years, in the past 46 months, explain that every time he got Shiro back he lost him, tell them that he was sick and tired of the last eight months playing on repeat and he was sick of the desert, sick of the dry heat that it produced and the sand that littered the place and sick of the sunburn it would always give him and just plain done with the stupid caves that hid all the secrets of the blue lion and dying and waking up and dying, only to wake up again, only to die of some stupid mistake.

He was tired of dying over and over.

He was tired of waking up again straight after.

He was tired of it all.

He really should have gone to bed last night.

And, now, time to suit up and form Voltron.

Armor, then zip line, then speeder, then lion.

He's done it so many times in the past (will do it so many times in the future) that he could do this in his sleep. His arm had twitched when he suited up, making him glad that he had put his jacket, for there was not any doubt in his mind that Shiro would chew him out over it, something he used to do when they were both on Earth, in the Garrison, and Keith would train his frustrations out of his systems, only for Shiro to stop him half way through, telling him that it was better, heathier, to talk your way through your problems and worries rather than to hit them, or anything else.

Well, that was before the Galra, because there have been times (previously, in another lifetime) when Keith saw his brother figure hit something in a blind panic.

The Shiro he knew, the one before the Galra took him away from him, would have never done that.

"Alright, guys. Let's just fly in tight formation until we're totally in sync." Shiro's voice echoed through the comm, and Keith allowed a smile to grace his face because, yes, he remembered this, he remembered his first day of training as a Paladin of Voltron. But then it quickly fell off his face because, today went (is going to be) horrible.

Allura had said something about the bonds of the lions and to feel them, but Keith didn't pay any attention to it because he knew, from not only the past (future?) but from the weak bond with the Red Lion (not his, it's not the same as before, not as deep as before) and the non-existent bond with his (but not the same) teammates, that this was not going to work. Half of the team had met the day before, and Keith was still not used to the fact that they were not the same before as before, not the people he had grown to trust and rely on to have his back.

He knew, from experience, that it was going to take more than flying in formation to create Voltron.

After the first time, he doesn't even bother to show his fake enthusiasm, and instead, focus on flying his lion in the long loopy circles that Shiro was leading them through.

He's missed this, the flying.

It was the only thing that made him regret getting booted out of the Garrison, the simulations were fun and he got the thrill of being in the air. Sure, not many people liked to work with his due to the lack of communication, and the risky decisions he would make, but he was good at what he did, and so the Garrison put up with his attitude, if only to use his talent. Keith was fine with it, he got to fly.

But then Shiro disappeared.

At first, they put up with his downhill behaviour, his downhill grades. He got in a fight with a cadet, they let him off. He was talented, this is just a phase.

Then he helped Katie Holt break into Iverson's office.

They were never close, him and Katie. They both knew each other due to shiro and the Holts being on the same team, and they had worked on some simulations together, but never anything more. Something they both had in common, however, was that they believed that the team was not dead.

So, it turns out that using smoke bombs to break into a commander's office and hack his computer to find out about a failed mission is where they drew the line. They both got warnings, punishments, lies about Shiro, about the Holts, and got told to buckle down, or else.

Katie broke into the office again, this time, without his help, so she was kicked out of the program.

It was Lieutenant Browning, Iverson's right hand man, who said he had helped her again. He didn't, but they didn't believe him, because they thought it was impossible for a 13 year old girl to do it all by herself. So they started yelling at him, and he yelled just as much, then they mentioned something about Shiro. He may have punched him, it was a bit of a blur, but by the end of the day, he too was kicked out of the Garrison, for disciplinary issues.

He sometimes wished he didn't, sometimes it was because he wanted to see Katie Holt become Pidge Gunderson and trick all of the officers there (she looks exactly like her brother for god's sake), but most of the time, it was flying.

Nothing was better than flying in Red. She purred in response, agreeing in her own way that this was one of the best things in the world. He smiled, but then he was overcome with a thought.

 _This didn't happen last time._

He didn't have the closest bond with his lion the first time around, he knew that. Lance and Blue had the strongest bond, he would say, but, at times, Lance had doubts which blocked the lion's bond. Shiro trusted his lion the most out of all of them, but personally kept Black out of arms reach, and there seemed to be something wrong on the lion's side too, something that made her less willing to bond than the other lions. Hunk was unaware of Yellow trying to support him in the same way that he supported the team, and Pidge was, at times, worse than him when it came to interactions with other beings, and while she did all these fancy upgrades for the Green, she sometimes forgot that the lion was sentient. Keith wondered about what stopped him from bonding with Red before, because now she was purring at him within a day and the only other person that happened with was Lance when they first met Blue because they were messing about-

They were bonding over what they both enjoyed. He and Red, just like Lance and Blue, loved to fly.

He made a mental note to take Red on more flights that didn't involve life-or-death situations. She purred loudly in response, agreeing with him.

"Whoo. Am I the only one who's still pretending to be excited?" Keith found it hard to keep a smile off his face. He wasn't excited per say, but he was glad that the bond with Red had grown, even if it didn't help to make Voltron now. Maybe later, after the day was over, he'll tell her about the past four years. Now though:

"Maybe we should be building Voltron from the ground up." Keith barely succeeded in suppression a yawn, and was glad that they didn't have the cameras on, just the comms. He knew this wouldn't work, but it was worth reliving the good times.

* * *

Somehow, the day got progressively better and worse at the same time.

It got better in the sense that his bond with Red had strengthen two-fold, and now was almost as good as the first time around. Even tired he could still appreciate her speed and the way that she quickly dodged the shots from the castle, until, of course the particle barrier went down and they just decide to give up trying to form Voltron then and there, thinking that maybe next time it would work.

It got worse in the sense that Coran showed them to the training deck.

First of all, the droids. Pidge and Hunk were quick to leave, being completely inexperienced in combat situations (his Pidge and his Hunk weren't), leaving just Shiro, Lance and himself, and that in its self didn't last every long, for Keith had put too much trust in himself to keep up with others in his sleep deprived manner, and too little trust in Lance to watch his back, causing him to not protect Shiro. Lance then went on to distract him (why did he need to make everything a competition, and why did he think that they were rivals?), causing him to lose focus and then the both of them were out.

He didn't even want to talk about what went wrong about the invisible maze, for the only thing that went right with it was that they stopped.

Now, they were onto the trust fall.

Red was purring in his ear when they started flying again; it was enough to make him turn his yawn into a smile. Sure, he didn't succeed in the trust fall last time, mainly due to the fact that his bond with Red wasn't as good as it was now or what it would become, that and he was more focused in beating Lance. This time, however, Keith was sure that they could do this. Last time, Shiro was the only one to do it because he trusted Black, right? Well, he trusted his lion with his life, she had saved his life in more than one occasion. Sure, this wasn't the same Red, but they were the same person, same sentient robotic lion with a temper worse than his (he felt a growl at that one, causing a grin to fill his face), so he trusted her.

He heard the others exclaim and being to protest loudly when Coran activated their training helmets, covering their eyes in a dark blanket of nothingness. It was soothing, almost relieving a headache that Keith didn't know he had. He tuned the others out as they started their decline, ignoring Hunk's panic voice and Lance egging him on with some competition he made up on the fly, and leaned back onto his chair, hands loosely gripping at the controls. This was okay, he trusted Red, he was sure he could 'look through he eyes' or whatever Coran said to do. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. ' _Patience yields focus'._ He had to wait, anyhow, for they were pretty high up, and he was only closing his eyes, anyhow, not like he was going to fall asleep, right?

* * *

Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.

Ugh.

Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, wondering how the fuck he had died. He had only just closed his eyes…

Had he fallen asleep while flying Red?

Fuck.

Well, that makes it nine deaths now, doesn't it?

* * *

 **A.N - RIGHT, SO I'VE SORTED OUT THE CHAPTER NOTIFICATIONS, BUT IF GET ANYMORE PROBLEMS THEN LET ME KNOW. THANKS TO PIPEDREAMPRAYER FOR THE INSPIRATION FOR THIS CHAPTER.**


	4. IV

_The park that Keith found himself sitting in was one that he used to visit a lot with his one of his foster families. The grass was shortly trimmed but littered with weeds and wildflowers, the kinds of which children would pick for their parents or their friends. They were once perhaps pretty, adding a faded colour to the muted world. The view would always mesmerise Keith with the way that the plants would dance to the wind and the bugs and other wildlife would sing along to its merry tune._

 _It was silent today._

 _There was no song sung by the creatures, not a wisp of wind for the grass nor the flowers to dance to, not a single colour to find in the view around him. Only emptiness._

 _It was quite today._

 _He was sick of the quick._

 _Maybe he should move._

 _There was no path for him to follow, no direction calling out to him like the blue lion did. The sky had gone grey and every step he took made no difference to the landscape around him._

 _No matter how much progress he made, he would never get anywhere. He legs began to get heavy, his breaths slowly becoming shallower and more desperate. He didn't know where he was going. He wasn't lost, he knew where he was, but he didn't want to be here, he wanted to be somewhere else._

 _But where was that?_

 _He kept walking._

 _Keith then began to stumble more, tripping over non-existent rocks in the ground. His side began to cramp, so he unconsciously covered it with his hand, as if applying pressure would take the pain away. His eyes were watering, his limbs shaky and his breaths coming to him in short, uneven puffs._

 _He needed to leave, he needed to go, but his legs gave way and suddenly he was on his knees, trying to get his breathing under control, trying to stop the tears, why was he crying? The view of the meadow had been replaced with black greasy strands. He went to move it out of the way, he needed to see, he needed to leave, but he stopped at the sight of red liquid dripping from his fingers, running down his palm, staining his arm and his jacket._

 _Oh._

 _Looking at his side, Keith could see a dark, horrid shade of red start to grow on his side, and he could do nothing but stare as the blood began to leave the wound and drip onto the grass and the small little daisies beneath him._

 _How did he get this? He was pretty sure this killed him. Was he dead? Had Sendax killed him again?_

" _Keith?"_

 _Looking up, Keith was quick to noticed that he was no longer at the park. The once grey sky was now the deepest of blacks, littered with stars, much more vibrant than the wildflowers could ever be, shifting from bright reds to calm yellows, vibrant greens and brilliant blues. They surrounded him. They were above him, to his left, to his right, below him._

 _It was beautiful, like nothing he had ever seen before. It was as if the stars themselves were calling for him, begging him to visit, and suddenly, finally, he understood why Shiro went to space, and he started to laugh because suddenly, finally, he understood why he was left behind. The giggles left his side hurting, he was still bleeding, still clutching at his side, but the blood no longer dripped. Well, your heart didn't beat when you're dead, did it?_

" _Keith! Look at me!"_

 _He still had a smile on his face when he stared back into Shiro's sterling grey eyes, his laughter haven been put on paused by Shiro. He looked worried, upset, no, he looked scared, there was fear in those eyes, but he smiled even brighter because, this time at least he wouldn't be alone. He wondered for a moment if this was his Shiro, the original Shiro, or just some variant of Shiro that Keith had met. It didn't matter, either way._

" _It's okay, Shiro. We're only dead."_

Keith woke up frowning, with his arm protecting his side. Out of all his deaths, being stabbed by Sendax then swept aside, only to watch his friends fail, was the worst. It was the slowest and the most painful, feeling the blood gush through his fingers in time to the rapid beats of his heart, watching as his fellow Paladins and teammates tried to beat him but failed. And, sometimes, he would feel a fake phantom ache in his side, overwhelming him with the urge to try and stop his non-existent bleeding.

But hey, at least he lived this time round.

So, he got up, showered, and got dressed into normal clothes, eyes unintendedly lingering towards his flight suit and at the unmarked side of his armour, imagining what it must looked like covered in blood, how it must have camouflaged with the red of his suit, making him wonder how bad it was to look at.

He's not going to cry.

* * *

"So, what's the plan? We go in there and just… pow, pow, pow! And free the prisoners?" Keith stared blankly at the Blue paladin while he watched Lance give actions to go with the 'pow'.

"What was that noise?" Lance insisted that it was a gun, which only made everyone bicker about how guns actually sounded. Did this happen before? Keith couldn't remember, it had been so long since the first time with the Balmera, so much so that everything suddenly felt 'new' but it wasn't, it shouldn't be new.

"Paladins, focus." Allura's order broke Keith train of thought, and brought his attention to the debrief that he was getting about the mission. People enslaved, stealing crystals, backstory over. Don't go in guns blazing, the Balmera is alive, as well as being a planet. Attack the mining equipment with Lance and Hunk. This seriously couldn't be that hard?

* * *

Walking through the tunnels with Lance reminded Keith of the Galra ships: Long, dingy and easy to get lost.

That being said, the only ship he's really been on was Sendax, but he's been on it several times, enough times to know what it looks like. Enough times for there to be multiple disasters on the ship.

An example of this was, one time, he Shiro and Pidge had been spotted by sentries before even Shiro's flashback, causing them to alert Sendax, who then put the airlock on, trapping he and Pidge on one side and Shiro on the other. Pidge had tried opening it from her side but it didn't accept her human DNA, and there was nothing on Shiro's side to help open the door, meaning they had to split, leaving Shiro to deal with a flashback on his own and Pidge not finding out about the prisoners.

The path he took to get to his lion was longer, they kept doubling back and going around in circles, and it did not help that Pidge would always break his concentration, causing him to doubt himself.

He found his lion, eventually.

Pidge almost murdered him when he flung the both of them into space.

"Is here about right?" Lance asked, looking down at the metal ground below him. Keith frowned. They hadn't gone far enough yet.

"No." He stated, walking down the tunnel more before stopping several meters away from his companion.

"No, no. It's over here." Lance replied, but before he could state where 'here' was, Keith had pulled him by the arm and dragged him to where he had previously stopped

"I know what I'm doing." Taking out his Bayard and activating it, he started to cut a hole in the floor. When he was done, he then pushed the Blue Paladin onto the circle, causing him to fall through, landing on the guarded sentinel. Lance then rushed over to the controls and started to press all the buttons, hoping that the one he pressed would close the doors, until finally groaning.

"I have no idea what I'm doing here. I'm no Pidge, and it's all Galra gibberish." Keith frowned and looked at the control panel from over Lance's shoulder. How did they close it last time? It couldn't be through the touch pad, they didn't have anything Galran they could use to activate it. The hand sensor was in the middle of the mess of Galran characters and buttons, making Keith want to press on it, knowing that it wouldn't do anything. Lance had gone back to button smashing, muttering how it would just do it automatically in video games.

"Your turn Keith." Lance finally muttered, walking away from the console to look out of the door in case of a lone guard coming in to check on them. Sighing, he took over Lance's place, looking to see if there were any buttons that he hadn't pressed. When he found out what actually closed the door, he was going to write it in the notebook, a brown one this time, what it was so he could commit it to memory, just in case.

"Boo!"

In shock, Keith spun around to face a laughing Lance, hand on the console to keep him balanced and upright. However, before Keith could chew Lance out over what he should and shouldn't be doing in missions, a siren when off as the hanger doors slid closed, the screen underneath his hand flashing a bright red-

 _-he was still bleeding, still clutching at his side, his hands were bright red from trying to contain it-_

"Whoa. How did you do that?"

"I… I don't know." Keith looked from the hand scanner, to his own hand, clean and blood free. That should have been impossible, only the Galra, and Shiro, could access their technology, Keith had seen it first-hand. Maybe it didn't scan for DNA, maybe they only had that technology on the ships.

Because there was no way he had Galra DNA.

"-core of the Balmera. That's where they're holding Shay." Right, back on task, there was time to worry about this later, when he didn't have to worry about dying in the middle of a mission.

Well, it wouldn't be the worse way to die.

"They're drawing us into an ambush, but we don't have a choice if we want to save Shay. We have to follow. Lance, Keith, get to the core. I think we're going to need everyone together to get through this firefight." Shiro's voice filled the comms, filled with so much certainty and confidence that the dream Shiro lacked. This was his Shiro, but not, in so many ways.

He really missed him.

"Copy that. We're on our way." Keith winced as Lance spoke into the radio, hearing the same thing twice at the same time. It was unnerving, not that he thought about it, slashing the console as he and Lance raced out of the room to the core, wherever that was.

It wasn't long until they ran into some sentries, who decided to start firing at them as soon as they were in sight.

It's a shame that Keith didn't duck in time.

* * *

Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.

Ugh.

Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, his mind finally empty of all the thoughts that plagued him before his untimely 'death', left with the mundane ones like 'what's for breakfast'.

Then it all comes rushing back to him.

Quickly sitting up on his bed, he reached underneath his pillow for his knife, one of the only things he had left from his birth parents.

The only thing he had left from his mother.

Slowly taking off the wrappings from the handle, he carefully stroked the glowing symbol at the hilt with his thumb, hoping that it would give him the answers.

It wouldn't, couldn't, obviously.

Frowning, he wrapped the symbol back up and got ready for the day. He needed to get a new notebook before he forgot some of the detail. He was rushing because he didn't want to think.

He couldn't be a Galra. He mother was human.

His mother left him.

He wasn't going to cry.

* * *

Keith got off his hoverbike in a back alley, hiding the bike behind some bins so somebody wouldn't get the bright idea and steal it. The town wasn't well known for the crime, there was barely any, but it also wasn't a clever idea to risk it.

It was still America.

Counting the loose change in his pocket, Keith decided that he would at least get some food before getting a notebook, he had left the house in a rush, and he couldn't remember for the life of him if he had food left in the cupboard.

He probably didn't.

Entering the store, Keith quickly walked down to the snack isle, his back to the bored teen who had the unfortunate job of manning the cash register.

Poor kid.

He was halfway of making his decision of picking up either a share bag of Doritos, some Cheetos or just forgoing getting something altogether when he heard the recognisable cry of "Give me all your money!"

Seriously, people actually say that?

Turning around, Keith looked at the kid at the till, looking about ready to piss himself. The robber held a gun to his head, so his fear was understandable, but the situation looked very movie like, so Keith didn't know if he was supposed to take this seriously.

"The money. Right now." The demand was clear, the threat left unspoken. The kid was now openly crying, there was nobody else in the store and nobody else on the street.

"I d-don't-"

"You have three seconds!"

Oh, quiznak.

Taking his knife out of his belt, Keith put a hand on the man's shoulder, clutching it tightly, the other putting the knife under the guy's throat.

"Come on, you're gonna pick on the smaller guy?"

He was not expecting the guy to smash his head back, colliding it with his, throwing him back onto the floor, making him drop his knife a few feet away. The kid had run away. Good. Hopefully to get the police, or at least somebody with handcuffs. He went to lunge for his knife, but the man above him kick him in the stomach, causing him to fall onto his side, curling in as he tried to catch his breath, not hearing the cock of the gun.

"Hey, kid. Did mummy ever tell you to never bring a knife to a gun fight?"

* * *

Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.

Ugh.

Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, with the sure knowledge of what not he was going to do today.

He hoped the kid was alright.

* * *

 **SO, KEITH'S VLOG, AM I RIGHT?**

 **OKAY, SO THE VLOG WAS AN INSPIRATION FOR THIS CHAPTER, AS YOU CAN TELL. I ALSO HAVE A BIG PLOT PLANNED, MEANING THAT I HAVE ALMOST FINISHED PLOTTING OUT WHAT THE OTHERS ARE DOING DURING THEIR WORMHOLE TRIPS [HINT: IT'S NOT THE SAME AS KEITH'S]**

 **WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK OF THE NEW CHAPTER?**


	5. V

**WARNINGS: THERE IS DESCRIPTIONS OF GORE, SELF HARM AND DEPRESSIONS IN THIS CHAPTER, AS WELL AS SMALL IMPLICATIONS OF SUICIDE.**

* * *

Ever since the killing shot to the head, Keith had been getting days where all he wanted to do was lay in his bed and stare at the ceiling.

No, wanted wasn't the right word for it. He didn't want to lay in his bed, he didn't want to do anything. He didn't want to train, he didn't want to make bombs, he didn't want to write, he didn't want to think, he didn't want to hope.

But he didn't want to give up, either.

So, against his will, he clambered out of bed. He dragged himself outside to train with his knife, gaining the muscle memory he lost every time he died. He forced himself to wire the bombs ready for when Shiro would eventually crash land back on Earth, something he could now do with his eyes closed, although it wasn't something he want to try just yet. Every day he made himself write in the grey notebook that he brought this time, even if it wasn't about his past deaths or something he needed to do to live, sometimes it was something he remembered from the first cycle, sometimes it was what had annoyed him that day, something that had made him smile, something that had made the day unique and different from yesterday, different from previous deaths where he had to spend the same eight months in the same shack.

Something to prove that it all wasn't the same.

He still tried not to think. He didn't want to think about his past deaths, all the blood that had been lost, the mystery that surrounded his mother and her blade - her blade, not his. He defiantly didn't want to think about all the stuff he had forgotten from the first cycle, the small conversations or small little movements that gave him flashes of déjà vu, the ones that caused his throat to close up and his eyes to begin to water, causing his vision to become blurry and his limbs trembly and for all the energy to be suck out of him, leaving him cold and empty.

He did not want to cry over something he couldn't control.

(He quickly gave up on that one.)

Because of this, Keith like to think that he hadn't given up, not just yet. Just because he felt like he was living with a constant lump in his throat or the fact that he had a small voice in the back of his head insisting it wouldn't change or the fact that some days he felt he didn't have the energy to get out of bed, the energy to move forward, he still did it.

He wasn't quite sure how he was doing it, but he was doing it, and that was all that mattered.

Right?

* * *

The eight months seem to drag on forever and speed past in no time at the same time.

Maybe it was because nothing in his life was changing, or maybe it was because he had relived this part of his life so many times that it blurred all into one yet seemed to take forever.

Not that it really mattered in the end, because Shiro had crashed landed onto Earth (again) and he had met the others (again), and he had drove them all off of the cliff to get away from the officers from the Garrison (again).

It still brought a smile to his face to hear Lance scream at the top of his lungs as they plummet towards the desert floor.

He still enjoyed flying.

He was glad that that part of him was still there.

It doesn't take him long to get to the shack, he knows the desert like the back of his hands now, but he doesn't really remember what he told the others when he tried to explain the energies that the Blue Lion was giving off. He remembers that Lance makes fun of him for it, but he makes fun of him for anything and everything he does, so it doesn't really faze him anymore, he just accepts it for what it was.

The next morning, they go and get the Blue Lion, then lead the battleship away from Earth, then go through the strange wormhole, then go and collect the other lions, fight Sendax and form Voltron for the first time.

Just like they did in the first cycle.

Keith is just grateful he's still breathing when his head hits the pillow.

* * *

Despite the fact that he was now in space, he still finds it hard to get out of the bed some mornings.

The first morning was easy enough, still high off adrenaline from the day before and armed with the knowledge of what would happen to him if he didn't get up when the alarm went off.

But, after that, well, he either slept or he didn't.

Some nights, like after a drawn-out battle with a Robeast or a commander sent to capture the Lions, he would be able to fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, with the consequence being nightmares where he was lost in the depths of space, or back at the endless field only to bleed out and, when he woke up, it would take him a good while before he found the right motivation to get him out of the bed again, taking him up to a varga until he managed to pathetically climb out of bed to crawl into the bathroom and a have a cold shower to alert his mind.

But then, more often than not, there would be nights when he couldn't find it in himself to want to go to sleep either, making him restless, his skin itchy, limbs jittery and breaths short.

Those were the nights he spends with Red.

Sometimes it was in her cockpit; sometimes it was just in the hanger. Some nights, he would talk to her about anything and everything, ranting over anything that came across his mind, until his throat was sore but his mind blissfully empty. Some nights, he trained with his knife, slashing the air in front of him until the jitters calmed down and the itch faded away, making him able to take deep breaths again. Some nights were spent in silence, with him shaking in the chair, his throat clogged and his cheeks soaked, content with listening to the quiet purrs of the Lion as she tried to comfort her Paladin.

Some nights, those rare, once-in-a-blue-moon nights, he slept peacefully, his body giving out and finally giving his mind the break that it deserved.

Keith liked those nights most of all.

* * *

Keith began to hate the colour red.

At first, during the first cycle, he didn't mind it. He didn't really have a colour preference, so he didn't mind that his Lion was red, or his armour was red. It was just a colour, there was no point in making such a big deal over it.

But, as the time loop continued, he began to see a lot of deaths, not all of them his own.

Most deaths contain blood.

He didn't really realise his growing hatred for red until recently, when he accidently cut his hand one night while swinging knife in Red's hanger, and as he watched the blood drip from his hands onto the floor, it suddenly wasn't from the cut on his hand, it was from the hole in his side, where Sendax had caught him so many cycles ago, and he was trying to contain it, trying to keep it all inside his body, his hand clenching at his injured side, only to have to watch as the blood slowly escaped his grasp, dripping onto the floor, collecting into small puddles on the floor.

It took his forever for him to come back to his senses, for him to realise he was dry-retching onto the floor, his hand seemingly numb, phantom pains in his side as his mind remembers something that his body doesn't, and his eyes sore from tears, the only thing keeping him grounded was Red's soft croons and purrs, comforting her Paladin in the only way she knew how.

He hates touching red now, and there are days where he can't even stand to look at it, making sure to keep his eyes away from reflective surfaces and to ignore what the controls inside Red looked like, keeping his eyes closed and trusting Red to be able to do what was needed to be done, using muscle memory and Red's commands to help pilot his Lion, using her eyes to see the battlefield.

There would be times where he thinks that, because of this, he shouldn't be the Red Paladin, but that thought is quickly shut down from Red's soft growls and threating purrs.

She didn't care about the that, she just wanted to protect her Paladin, so Keith let her.

He thinks it's because he's too weak to do it on his own anymore.

* * *

Like with bad days, there are some good days too.

The good days were the ones where he could look at the colour red and not see Sendax grin with it. They were the ones where he got out of bed in half a varga with a decent amount of sleep and minimum nightmares. They were the ones where his eyes were dry, his throat open and deep breaths were possible; there was no jitters and the itch that covered his skin non-existent. Those were the days when he remembered what it was like to want to do something, to aim for a goal, and to work hard at achieving the goal that was set out.

They were the days that he remembered what it was like to want to hope.

They were the days that made him feel he was making all the bad days up, making him believe that he was fine, he was just exaggerating, there was nothing wrong with him.

Those were the days that he remembered that there were people out there who had it worse off than him, the days when the voice in his head would remind him of Shiro's PTSD and tell him how selfish he was for wallowing in the self-pity and not seeing how bad Shiro had it, and how he was just being edgy.

He wasn't depressed, he was just seeking attention.

Out of all the types of days, Keith thought that these ones were the worst.

* * *

They're flying towards the coordinates that they managed to salvage from Sendax's mind when Keith realises that he hadn't lived this far before.

Today was going to be a training night, Keith had decided earlier that day, for his hands hadn't stopped shaking since he had thrown up all his dinner from the previous night into the toilet after waking up that morning, and his arms were covered in an itch that begged Keith to drag his nails across until blood seeped from the wounds and travelled down his arm, trickling to his fingertips and dripping onto the floor below.

He hated nights like that.

But now he had a surge of hope run through his veins, like a weight was lifted off his shoulders and he could finally look beyond his inevitable death.

There was a chance he could make it, and Keith grabbed onto that line of thought as if it was a single piece of rope, the only thing that was stopping him from falling to his death into the abyss that was his thoughts.

He could do this.

Suddenly, the world didn't seem so dark anymore.

* * *

Keith was about to get onto the Green Lion with the others when Shiro stopped him, asking for a word.

Did this happen last time too?

"Hey, are you okay?" Keith looked at Shiro, his face unreadable. Was he okay? How vague. Did he mean today, or just in general? Was he okay right now? Yes, he had finally found something to hope for. Was he okay with the situation he was in? No, he wasn't okay. He kept dying because of small stupid mistakes, and that was beginning to piss him off. Was he okay with living with no motivation and no hope? No, he really wasn't.

"I'm fine. Why couldn't I be?" Keith replied neutrally, careful to look at Shiro's face, but not making eye contact. Shiro had enough to worry about, with being the leader of Voltron and being the Black Paladin on top of recovering from his torture with the Galra and the PTSD that came with it. He wasn't going to be selfish and dump his 10-ton bag worth of problems onto Shiro, the one who already carried enough weight on his shoulders. That wouldn't be fair, especially since, soon, most of his problems would be going away, since this time he had his rope that he was gripping onto tightly.

He was going to make it this time.

Shiro didn't seem too impressed with his answer.

"Because we haven't properly talked since you guys saved me on Earth. You've been acting quieter than I remember and… I'm worried, Keith." Shiro was being sincere, using his big puppy dog eyes and his lips pouting, and damn Keith's eyes were beginning to water again and his throat was closing up because, was it really that obvious he had changed.

He really was seeking for attention.

And now he made Shiro, the one person who didn't deserved to find out about Keith cry for attention, was asking why he was acting the way he was, and he was worried about it.

How fucking selfish of him.

"I'm fine, I promise, it's just…" Keith licked his lips and his fingers began to drum against his leg, his jitter becoming worse by the minute.

"It's been a long year, okay?" He said quietly, and Shiro seemed to accept that for an answer, but before he could act upon this additional information, Pidge announced that the Green Lion was ready to go, so the pair walked side by side into the crowed cockpit of the left arm of Voltron, and never before had Keith been glad to have a colour out of his view.

He didn't know if he was ready for the future, his hands were beginning to sweat from the grip on the rope and burn slightly as his weight began to drag him down, his breaths coming to him in short puffs and his body filled with adrenaline and anticipation.

But, it seems, the future was ready for him.

* * *

 **BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY I WAS ON THE VERGE OF TEARS WHEN I WAS WRITING THIS.**

 **DON'T BE AFRAID TO MESSAGE ME IF THIS TRIGGERED YOU IN ANY WAY.**


	6. VI

Keith could feel Shiro's glaze on him on the way to the Galra station, the concern from his leader radiating from him and filling the Green Lion with an awkward air that none of the team wanted to bring up, leaving a think silence filled with anticipation for the mission.

Looking around, Keith noted that the inside of Green was almost a replica of his own Lion, the same controls with a different colour scheme, something that shouldn't really come to a surprise to Keith. They were the arms of Voltron, so why shouldn't they be the same, even if they did have different functions, they had the same purpose.

Pidge was the left arm. She was the one who defended the team, whether it be with a physical shield or information. He was the right arm. He attacked either with his sword and knife or with his words. Both did to protect the team.

He'll protect them.

They didn't deserve to die. None of them. Not Lance, who wanted, needed, to get home to tell his mother he was okay, who needed to show the universe exactly what they were dealing with, making sure that they laughed too. Not Hunk, who deserved to see Shay again, who deserved to taste everything the universe could throw at him. Not Pidge, small Pidge, who still hadn't found her brother and father, who's family had been broken for over a year now. Not Shiro, who was now remembering more of what happened to him, who was not getting over his PTSD.

Not him. Not when he was so, so close.

Keith knew he should be concentrating on the mission, he shouldn't be staring blankly at whatever happened to be ahead of him, thinking about the 'shoulds' and 'shouldn'ts'. He should be listening to his teammates and not the soft hum that Red sends his way despite being so far, filled with silent support. His hands feel oddly still, his breaths suddenly deep and calm, controlled, and his pulse strong. He felt at peace, as if he knew what he was doing.

He knew what he was doing.

He was holding onto the rope with a strong grip, clenching into the fibres and hanging on with dear life.

Shiro sent a more direct look his way as Keith finally look around, and Keith sent a small smile back. One that said he was okay. Not fine, but okay.

Today was turning out to be a 'good' day.

Keith trailed behind the group into the control room, taking note that Pidge and Hunk were talking. He wouldn't be able to tell what they were talking about, but talking nonetheless. Keith turned his head to stare out of the window, frowning as he watched a battleship park up.

"Hey, guys, I think we got company. Think we should get out of here?" Now wasn't that a large slice of déjà vu, making him wonder if he said those words identically, or just something similar. Were any of them using things that they said from the first cycle?

A random screen pops up makes him duck towards the floor, and he watched as Hunk quickly sorted the situation out, with a quick waving of the robot's hand, making Keith smile slightly at how the antics were able to keep them under the radar for just that bit longer, making him feel as if he was floating above the space clouds and swimming in the nebula dust.

Then Allura's question about the ship that had just docked made him feel with ice and choke on his air.

Allura was going to be kidnapped.

There wasn't anything he could do about it.

He couldn't stop them, not without an explanation, and he wasn't about to tell them about the time loop, no, not when he was so close to the end, not when he was holding on so tight that his wrists had begun to ache and the palms of his hands started to bleed because his nails were digging right into the flesh of his hands, gripping on with all his might. Not when Shiro's concern was high enough for him to call out the Red Paladin. Not when he had hope.

So, he stayed quiet during Allura's exclamation of Altean shapeshifting abilities.

He made no comment about Shiro going in with the Princess.

He missed his queue with the quintessence containers, not that he cared much for them anymore. He doesn't want to find out what they are, even though the others are curious. He doesn't want to fight the masked figures, not with the chance of death being this high.

He doesn't want to let go of the rope.

He almost didn't react when Shiro and Allura set off the alarm in the ship. But suddenly he's with the others running for the cover of the Green Lion, hoping to get Shiro and Allura out before they get hurt.

Even though that Keith already knew that Allura didn't make it.

He didn't make a single comment when Shiro turned up on his own, but Keith doubted that he would have been heard over the yells of the others as they argued about the dangers of attacking Zarkon head on. Keith felt like something was missing from the scene, giving him an itch to do something, to say something, but his throat was closing up again and he couldn't talk, couldn't breathe, even though he was trying to take breaths, trying to clear his mind of what he hadn't done and what he needed to do.

"What do you think, Keith?"

Shiro was staring at him again, but now he wasn't the only one. The sudden silence was deafening.

"I'm… I'm not sure. I mean, we shouldn't do it, not really, we'd be delivering the universe's only home to the hands of the universe's biggest enemy." Keith felt sick to his stomach for even suggesting leaving Allura behind, his breaths coming in shorter and shorter breaths, making feel light headed.

"Keith, that's cold, even for you." Keith managed to hide a wince at the harsh words from Hunk, focusing on how his chest would inhale the air then release it. "What if it was one of us? What if it was me? You wouldn't leave me, would you? Would you?"

"I never said I liked the idea. I'm just thinking logically."

"No, you're thinking of yourself because you're too selfish to do what's right." Keith couldn't hide his flinch at the words this time.

 _You always think about yourself._

 _You never think about others._

 _How selfish._

The others were arguing again, over who lost Allura, over what to do, over whether they should stay or go. There was, however, something that they mutually agreed with.

They needed to get Allura back.

* * *

Keith swallowed deeply as he sat down in Red's chair, hands clenching at the controls as he struggled to take in a deep breath, hoping to calm himself down.

He was so, so close to the end now.

Forming Voltron was so easy for them now, the feelings of anticipation and anxiety filled the bond between them, and Keith couldn't help but push all the hope he had into it. They could do this. They were going to do this.

They've got this.

Keith closed his eyes and fully emerged himself with Red, blocking out all colour and light from his eyes to take over Red's instead. When the command went out to form the sword, Keith spent no time for hesitation as he brought his Bayard to its docking station and turned it, arming Voltron with one of its many weapons.

Everything was going aright.

Everything was going to plan.

But then it wasn't.

Keith threw his eyes open as something akin to an electric shock went through him and Red as well as the bond between the paladins and himself, causing him to freeze up and for his breath to come in short quick pants.

"Wh~~~'s going o~~~?" The comms were filled with static, like a bad connection, making it borderline impossible to make out what Hunk had just said. Keith hands flew across Red's control board, looking for something that would help with the condition that Red was left with, only to have no response. He checked to see if he could control the sword.

Nothing.

"We've lost the sword! Something's malfunctioning!" Keith shouted as he took his arms back as sparks began to fly off from the board, bright yellow that light up the red cockpit, causing Keith to gasp and push himself back into the chair, eyes screwed shut as Sendax's laugh began to fill his ears.

Now was not the time for this.

He could hear Coran and Lance static panicking on the comms, asking about that happening. He could feel Hunk slowly being overridden with panic on the bond, Pidge freeze in fear of what was going on and Shiro…

He didn't know what was going on with Shiro, but he got the sharp impression that he was losing.

Then Voltron broke.

"Wha~~~ppened there? Some~~~tore us apar~~"

"I don't~~~but we~~~igger problems rig~~~look!"

Keith opened his eyes to Lance's broken command, looking beyond the red controls and tuning out the sinister laughter to stare at the fighter ships that were being to crowd their surroundings. He took a deep breath as he brings to start firing them down, hyper focused on the enemy's ships, listening in for the occasional suggestion from Red, that is, until Shiro's groans of pains were loud enough to snap him out of it.

"Shiro, are you okay?"

"Somethin~~~overriding~~~My lion~~~not res~~~ding!"

Keith hated the feeling of déjà vu.

"Shiro's in trouble! I'm going in!"

* * *

"Kei~~~on't!"

Keith could just feel the irritation role right of Coran as he straight for Zarkon head on.

He knows that he shouldn't do this, he shouldn't fight the guy that was responsible for the majority of what happened in the last 10,000 where the empire was concerned. Not when he was so close to the end, so close to being able to let go of the rope knowing that his feet were firmly on the floor.

But it was all his fault.

It was his fault that most of the known universe was in needed of saving. It was his fault that millions, maybe even billions, of people and planets, were dying every quintant. It was his fault that Pidge had lost her family and can't find them. It was his fault that Shiro went missing.

It was his fault that he was stuck dying over and over.

"You cannot stop me. The Black Lion will finally be returned to its original Paladin."

Wait, what?

The backhanded comment had made Keith hesitate, causing Zarkon to get in a lucky shot, throwing Red and Keith back with a simple swing of his weapon, causing the Red Paladin to clench onto the controls with his life as he was thrown around.

Keith clenched his teeth as he got Red up again, ignoring Coran's comment and the blaring alarm that was going off inside Red, telling him that something inside was damaged, as if he didn't already know that. Now that he was able to get a closer look at Zarkon's weapon, he could see the colour theme of black and purple, a colour palette that Keith had long began to associate to Shiro.

The colour palette that belonged to the Black Paladin.

He began to charge ahead again, dodging at all the attacks that he could and wincing at every hit he got, but the grin that began to spread along his face began to grow as more and more attacks managed to get through.

He's got this.

His hands were starting to suffer from the non-existent rope burn.

"~~~cope? You don't~~~dealing with! He's~~~powerful! Listen to~~~don't engage-"

Keith growled as he turned his comms off. They were fried anyway, and he was sure he would be spoken to about his 'reckless behaviour' when he got back onto the ship anyhow, because he was going to go onto the castleship again, he was going to live longer than the corrupted wormhole, live past the time loop and pretend that it never happened.

He hates dying.

"You fight like a Galra soldier. But not for long!"

 _You fight like a Galra soldier._

He was human. He wasn't Galra.

There was no proof-

 _-the screen underneath his hand flashing a bright red-_

His breath was gone, even though he was sure he was breathing. His head was leaning on something. It wasn't like that before.

 _-he was still bleeding, still clutching at his side, his hands were bright red from trying to contain it-_

He could feel non-existent blood on his side, and there was blood in his hair, had that always been there?

- _sight of red liquid dripping from his fingers, running down his palm, staining his arm-_

Keith closed his eyes to stop the colour red from filling his vision, ignoring the sounds of battle around him, trying to calm down, trying to take a breath.

 _-Pidge's scream as Sendax squeezed her small body too hard, blood oozing between his metal fingers-_

What had he been doing? He was sure it was important.

- _Shiro refusal to make a sound as his chest is stabbed, his blood making a beautiful pattern on the floor below-_

Red was purring. He liked it when she purred. It filled him with hope that he didn't know he had left.

He could hear Coran again and Shiro. He frowned. He was sure he turned that off.

His hands felt sore and burnt, as if he had suddenly gotten friction burn on his hands.

He wondered where that came from.

* * *

Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control. He laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere, small shallow breaths raising the dust particles from the floor.

Small tears began roll of from Keith's face to join the dusty floor, his breath becoming quicker and more shallower, his head becoming dizzy and his limbs all shaky.

He was sucked out into the voids of space, sick and dizzy with the sensation of falling.

He had let go of the rope, and his hands were too burnt to grab hold of it again.

* * *

 **So, what did you guys think?**

 **I want to say that it gets better from here on out for Keith, I really do, but I can't. I have some big stuff planned for the last few chapters of this story that I have been building up to for the entire story and I can't wait for you guys to read it.**

 **I also want to thank everyone who commented on the last chapter. I know that for some of you that it may have been a hit that was close to home but for me, I think that it is as good thing. Depression can take all kinds of forms but all of them are valid form of it. For many people, they will think that they're not depressed or that their depression isn't bad because there is someone out there who is more depressed or has a worse mental health. In Keith's case, he sees Shiro's mental health and decides that not only was he fine, but that he is just seeking attention - a common line of thought for those with mental health issues.**

 **I should be able to update next Thursday or Friday, because I am away next weekend, but if not, the update will be later than usual.**


	7. AN

**AUTHOR'S NOTICE!**

So, as you guys may or may have noticed, I haven't updated in a while. I have a reason, that being I am going to change the layout of the story on this site due to the way that it works. So, instead of publishing each story on it's own, as I have been doing, I will be combining each of the stories into one big one with a certain layout for the chapters. If you really want to read each Paladin's story by themselves, then I suggest you go over to archive of our own, where they are being laid out in their own stories. If you really want to, then I will publish each character's journey, but it's really hard to do this on this site, so if I am going to do that, then I am going after I have finished that part of the story...

That being said, I will be keeping this story up until I at least catch up, because I love the comments here.

The story is called 'Wonderland', and you should go and check it out ;-)


	8. VII

**[I forgot that I had this chapter, so forget what I said, you'll get this instead.]**

 _ **TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE AND SELF HARM IN THIS CHAPTER!**_

* * *

It took a while for the tears to stop.

Well, Keith thought it was a while; it could have been anything. A varga, a quintant, or a single dobosh; Keith wouldn't know, and he certainly didn't care. Not anymore.

Who cared about time when it never seemed to run out?

His muscles started to ache long before he stopped shredding tears, and felt too heavy to move by the time he did stop, leaving him stuck on the dusty floor, staring ahead at nothing, with a tearstained face and fingers that ached from a non-existent friction burn.

He could feel his chest rise and fall rhythmically, long, deep breaths that don't fit into the situation. His lips felt dry and his eyelids felt so heavy, making it hard for him to open his eyes every time he blinked.

He was tired.

He was so so so tired.

Maybe he could go to sleep?

Sleep until the desert was cold and blew with a chilly breath. Sleep until the caves collapsed onto the Blue Lion, making sure that nobody ever found her ever again. Sleep until the true darkness came, came to swallow him up and up and up until up went down and down went up again.

Sleep forever and ever and ever until ever ends.

What a funny thought.

He needs more than a simple sleep. Sleep only lasts for several varga, and that allotted time is usually painful for Keith to deal with, if he was even lucky enough to be sleeping during that time. He needed rest.

He needed it to stop.

Ha. The corner of his lip quirked at the thought of hope invading his mind.

He wasn't going to fall for that again.

Nope.

No.

Nada.

Keith screwed his eyes tight shut as he pushed himself up from the floor, the floorboards having imprinted onto his face, his tear tracks collecting the dust that had once rested upon it and his hair was better off not mentioned. The sudden movement after so long without it makes his head rush with blood, making him want to just collapse onto his bed and lay still until the rush passes.

The only thing stopping him from doing so was the glint of light out of the corner of his eye, indicating that his knife was still on his bed, the wrappings stopping the small purple glow from being seen from outside, hiding the secrets beneath the fabrics.

Picking the knife up, Keith brushed his thumb across the material, rough and grey with age, but not with enough force to nudge it.

 _You fight like a Galra soldier._

There was no way that he was a Galra- he wasn't purple, wasn't covered in fur, didn't have yellow eyes.

He wasn't a Galra, his father was human. His mother was-

He didn't know his mother. She had left long before he could remember, leaving behind a stupid glowing knife and probably some stupid alien DNA.

He wasn't a Galra.

 _-the screen underneath his hand flashing a bright red-_

He wasn't a Galra.

His hands had become shaky, he should probably put the knife down before something bad happens, before he does something stupid. The itch was back, his skin was tight and his blood, his deep red blood, was running hot and fast under his skin. He gripped the knife harder, if to stop the shakes at least.

He needed to put the knife down.

He just wanted it all to stop.

No more dying. No more living the same eight god damn months until he died again, and again, and again.

No more.

Please.

He wasn't asking for much.

Was he asking for much?

This was all too much.

He readjusted his grip on the knife and held his breath as he slowly dragged the blade across the inside of his wrist, feeling weirdly numb to everything.

He took quick intake of air, and released short laugh as he finally - _finally_ \- let go of the knife.

* * *

 _Nice try._

* * *

 _The park had grown much darker from his previous visit, the sun (if there was even a sun) had been covered by murkier, more ominous clouds than before, the grass beneath his feet now dead and rotting. The silence was screaming at him, urging to leave, but he already knows that he's not going to be going anywhere, so there was no point in moving._

 _There was something missing from the scene._

 _Where were the flowers?_

 _Scanning the ground, his eyes searches for the specks of colour in the monotone world, turning his body with his head when there wasn't any, just to make sure there wasn't any behind him, walking backwards just to make sure he wasn't standing on one._

 _One misstep back, and he was falling again._

 _He hated this feeling. He screws his eyes closed for their protection as he fallsHeyH through the air, feeling the way that it would whip and flick at his face and skin. The wind was holding his limbs still, his hair was all over the place, flailing uncontrolledly in front of his face, and it felt like he had left his stomach in the empty field._

 _He hated the sensation of falling._

 _He would hit the ground in a soon, hit it and die again and wake up on the floor in the shack again, like he always did when he fell._

 _He hated dying._

 _Opening his eyes, Keith took a gasp a breath as he tried to get a grasp of his surroundings._

 _Only, unlike what he expected, he wasn't in his shack. He was in that weird spacey place again, where he saw Shiro, and he was floating, was he floating? No, he was sitting, staring, watching. They were twinkling, the stars were twinkling, they were calling, shining, begging a for a visit, twinkling blue and yellow and red and green and so many other colours that be began to make his head hurt and Keith flinches, because for a moment he's next to an exploding star instead of just viewing them. He wants to look away from them, to get away from them because he doesn't want to die by star again, he doesn't want to die again, please not again, so he gets up and he starts to walk away from the stars, even if they were calling for him, even if they were begging him to come closer. He closes his eyes as he walks because he knows, at least subconsciously, he's not going anywhere, not really, but he has to go-_

 _He bumps into something cold and metal._

 _Opening his eyes, Keith's view was obstructed by the metal paw of the Black Lion._

 _Weird._

 _This hadn't happened last time._

 _Shiro was there last time._

 _So why was his Lion there instead?_

 _He understood why Shiro were there, at least, a little. He could feel the bond that being a Paladin of Voltron made, he could feel the others when they were fighting together, training together, controlling Voltron together. They were a team, and a really good one when Keith hadn't die too soon._

 _He would say that he had the strongest connection to Shiro out of all the Paladins._

 _He had no connection to Black._

 _Black was the distant lion, the one that would help Shiro in the middle of the fight, but at the bare minimum. She would do what it would take to make sure Shiro survived, making sure that the team got out of there, but she still felt distant, detached, in a unique way from the other lions._

 _It was like something was holding her back, making her hesitate and have second thoughts._

 _He stared up at the lion's face, careful to ignore the onslaught of twinkles of stars in his peripheral. He didn't want to know about the stars, he didn't care about them at the moment. They didn't matter, because for some reason the Black Lion was here with him._

 _Putting his hand on the cold metal, Keith wondered if he would be able to feel the energies of the Lion here. He could do it with Blue, to a small extent, seeing that that was how he found her in the first place, even if there was no proper bond between the two of them. He could do it a lot better with Red, actively feeling out for her core in the middle of a battle, in the middle of the night, in the middle of an awkward conversation that he wanted nothing to be part with, in the middle of a panic attack._

 _Red helped him through so much._

 _Maybe Black could help him too?_

* * *

( _Keith only laughed at the thought of it when he woke up again on the wooden floorboards. How could Black help him? Anyway, he wasn't about to put so much hope in something he knew was going to fail.)_

* * *

Keith sighed as he walked off from Shiro and Pidge, missing the concerned looks he had gotten from the eldest, and into the labyrinth that was Sendax's ship. Didn't it at least have signs indicating where someone should go when they needed something? Or did they get a map of ship on the first day and were expected to have it memorised within a pheob?

Or maybe they did what he did every time he was on a Galra ship and run around like a headless chicken until you find what you're looking and hope that you don't get yelled for being late.

Shaking his head, Keith took a right, making sure to look down the corridor before heading down it, following the pull that Red gave off and ignored the way that his hands itched as he regripped his knife.

He hadn't been in the mood to temp a panic attack just yet.

Another corner, and he was in the hanger that Red was being held in. Like all the other times before, she was protected by the blue particle barrier and her red coat of paint, while old, reflected the pride she obviously felt for not giving into the Galra.

He smiled at the thought as he left Red enter his mind, ready to be judged again.

He always wondered if, one cycle, Red won't accept him to be her Paladin, leaving him for the aliens. It had yet to happen, but at this point, it seemed that anything was possible, so he hadn't completely crossed the idea of his list of 'things that could possibly happen' list.

Keith still got the impression that he had to do something to impress her.

Woman.

The sudden sounds of plasma guns brought Keith back to his surroundings, reminding him that he was still in the Galra ship.

It may have slipped his mind (again) that this happened.

Ugh.

Bringing up his shield and readjusting his hold on the knife, Keith wondered what he should do next. Did he want to open the air lock again? He swore there have been a couple of times where he didn't have to do that, other than the times where he had died of course.

He doesn't notice the plasma beam come towards him and hit him in the back side of the head.

* * *

"…part of the Blade…"

"…Paladin, it's impossible…"

"…go planet side...Central Command…"

"…But the Emperor…"

Keith groaned as he came to, frowning as he brought his left arm closer to his body, feeling dead, useless and probably broken. Looking around, he noted the same purple colour theme as with every Galra ship, the small room he had been moved to, two meters by two by the looks of it, with solid by unidentifiable metal, cold to the touch.

Not only did he survive a hit to the head, a first for him, but he had also been captured and place in a cell.

How fucking typical.

He was pleased to note that he was still wearing his armour, though it seemed that both his Bayard and his knife, as well as his helmet had been taken away from him, leaving him completely weapon less and with no way to contact the rest of the soon to be team.

He had never done this before. It had never happened.

He was totally out of his league for this.

He could feel himself begin to panic more, take in shallower breaths, feel his heartbeat speed up, his thoughts become completely uncontrollable, but his mind completely detached from everything else.

This time, Red wasn't there to help him. He couldn't feel her in his mind, the comfort blanket that he had grown so used to after leaving the desert.

He relied on her too much.

Unconsciously, he dug his nails into his left arm, deep enough to go through his flight suit (something that should be impossible), deep enough for it to bleed, deep enough to watch the blood trail out of the wound in an almost sluggish way.

It was almost calming to watch it act like a river making its way towards the sea.

How sick was that?

Keith looked up at the whoosh of the door, squinting at the new source of light, only to feel his stomach drop as he watched two masked figures walk into the room.

Druids.

He didn't know a lot about them, only that they were most of the reason for Shiro's arm and that you do not want to fight them, though he had gotten that from first-hand experience rather than word of mouth.

"So, this is the little half-breed that was able to invade the ship?" Keith leaned back more into the wall of the cell, desperately wanting to get away from the creatures in front of him, his mind hanging onto the words they said.

Half-breed?

(He wasn't a Galra.)

( _You fight like a Galra soldier._ )

(He _wasn't_ a Galra.)

"Yeah, we haven't heard back from Central Command yet, but they'll be interested as it seems that he may be the Red Paladin as well as a Blade member." The masks that they wore were creepy, with six eyes that made it as if they were staring deep into his soul, trying to find all the secrets to his life without having to ask and long dark robes hat reminded Keith of a child on Halloween, pretending to be the Grim Reaper.

He kept his hand over the self-inflicted wound as they inspected him closely, hoping that they wouldn't notice the small streams of blood in the gloom. Instead of going for his arms, the one closest to him goes for his ears, pulling at them and inspecting them with an unchecked curiosity, causing Keith to cry out in alarm and shock than plain.

"Strange. I've never seen a half-breed with such weird ears before." They muttered, twisting them around so they could see the back of them, making Keith grit his teeth, not wanting to shout out more. He was frozen, stuck in the position, and even though his biggest desire at that moment was to kick the fucker with all his might, his limbs were heavy, as if made of lead.

"Makes you think of what we could do with him, doesn't it?"

As soon as they had come, they were gone again, leaving Keith more edge than before.

There was no way he could stay here.

Sitting up, Keith tried to put his weight onto his legs, trying to stand up. Only, 'tried' was the key word, for, as soon as he did put his body weight onto his legs, they gave, leaving him back where he started, out of breath and stranded on the floor.

He was tired.

He was so so so tired.

Maybe he could go to sleep?

A small laugh escaped him at the thought.

Sleep?

He wasn't entitled to that simple luxury.

Rest?

As if.

What he needed, was to get out of here.

He needed to die.

No more.

Please.

He wasn't asking for much.

Was he asking for much?

Intaking a breath of air, he quickly bit down onto the wrist of his left arm where his nails had previously been, biting down deeper and deeper, feeling the blood rush from the self-inflicted wound and into and around his mouth, making him accidently swallow some of the liquid.

Throwing his head back towards the wall, he released short laugh as he as he tasted his own blood in his mouth, feeling it drip from his mouth, feeling weirdly numb to everything as he watched the blood pump out of the wound at what should have been an alarming rate, but only made him feel calm.

* * *

 _Nice try._


End file.
